From Atlantic Rescue to Transforming Endurance Sport: Chris Williams' Journey

What does it take to reinvent an entire sport? Well, today we sit down with Chris Williams, the commercial leader behind Supertri, the revolutionary triathlon league, shaking up endurance sport From securing game-changing partnerships to creating a team franchise model that financially supports athletes. 

Supertri is on a mission to make triathlon faster, more exciting and more sustainable for pros and fans alike. But Chris's journey goes far beyond boardrooms. He's an endurance athlete himself, and in this episode he shares the jaw-dropping story of his attempted Atlantic row and the dramatic rescue that followed. 

We talk about resilience, risk and bouncing back from failure, as well as what endurance sport can teach us about success in life and business. So if you want to know how the sport is evolving, how to push your limits and how to turn passion into opportunity, this is an episode you can't afford to miss. 

Highlights:

• Chris’ Unconventional Journey into Sports Business
• From Rowing the Atlantic to Finding Purpose
• The Role of Psychology in Leadership and Sales
• Lessons in Resilience from a Life-Threatening Capsize
• Anchoring Emotions with "Where Do I Need to Be?"
• Supertri’s Mission to Modernize Triathlon
• Creating High-Impact, Short-Course Triathlon Events
• The Power of Storytelling in Growing the Sport
• Supertri’s Mixed-Gender Team Franchise Model

Links:
Connect with Chris Williams through LinkedIn.

Please Subscribe to Business of Endurance on Apple Podcasts, leave a comment, and give us a 5-Star review.

This episode was sponsored by The Trusted Team and 4th Discipline

Episode Transcript

Chris Williams (00:07):
having an ability to anchor yourself and
to pull yourself out, like Isaid earlier, from the immediate
emotion or the immediatechallenge.
How do I create the ability topull myself out of, maybe where
I am emotionally and re-identify, reapp, re-appraise where do I
need to be right now?
I find that to be a reallyuseful practical trigger there.

Charlie Reading (00:29):
What does it take to reinvent an entire sport
?
Well, today we sit down withChris Williams, the commercial
leader behind Supertri, therevolutionary triathlon league,
shaking up endurance sport Fromsecuring game-changing
partnerships to creating a teamfranchise model that financially
supports athletes.
Supertri is on a mission tomake triathlon faster, more

(00:52):
exciting and more sustainablefor pros and fans alike.
But Chris's journey goes farbeyond boardrooms.
He's an endurance athletehimself, and in this episode he
shares the jaw-dropping story ofhis attempted Atlantic row and
the dramatic rescue thatfollowed.
We talk about resilience, riskand bouncing back from failure,

(01:13):
as well as what endurance sportcan teach us about success in
life and business.
So if you want to know how thesport is evolving, how to push
your limits and how to turnpassion into opportunity, this
is an episode you can't affordto miss.
And, by the way, I always askabout books, but I absolutely

(01:33):
love Chris's recommendations onbooks here, so you've got to
stick around to the end to checkthat out.
Anyway, let's dive into thisbrilliant episode with Chris
Williams from Supertry.

(01:59):
Favor, before we dive intotoday's episode, if you're
enjoying Claire and I bringingyou amazing guests, not asking
you for patronage fees and notjamming the podcast full of
adverts, then the best way youcan help us continue to do that
and to make it even better is tohit that subscribe button, and

(02:21):
here's my promise to you whenyou subscribe, we'll make it our
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improve this podcast every week.
So thank you so much for yoursupport and for being a part of
the Business of Endurancecommunity.
Let's dive in.
So, chris, welcome to theBusiness of End endurance,

(02:43):
really looking forward tochatting to you and learning
more.
You've certainly had aninteresting journey through the
world of sports so far, and I'dreally like to dive into your
story a little bit.
First, before we sort of startdigging into the questions For
those people that don't knowmuch about you, can you just
explain your sort of journey andhow you've arrived at where
you've arrived at now from abusiness point of view?

Chris Williams (03:10):
Absolutely, charlie.
Thank you very much for havingme on.
So, yes, gosh, where to start?
So, hello everyone.
I'm Chris Williams.
I am technically the commercialdirector for Supertri.
We are an innovative platformin the sport of triathlon, doing
both professional racing butalso now, more so, moving into
the world of mass participationas well.
But my background you know.
I've been in sport as a, as asort of hobbyist and and just a

(03:32):
passionate fan since day dot.
I'm sport through and throughit's.
It's always been my passion.
But in terms of my career, Isort of have to admit I sort of
stumbled into it a little bitright.
It was an atypical route intosport because I didn't sort of
probably like many.
I sort of stumbled into it alittle bit right.
It was an atypical route intosport because I didn't sort of
probably like many.
I grew up hoping that my role insport might be more on the on
the participatory side or sortof pursuing it from that

(03:54):
perspective, than than on thecommercial side.
And yeah, I grew up playingsport, cricket, cricket was my
number one sort of love and inmy early 20s found myself
pursuing that as as a career andum, when things were not quite
happening in that sense and sortof the pressure of, I suppose,
the real world came knockingwhere you know I didn't have a

(04:15):
contract in cricket.
They're lined up for me.
I just spent the last twowinters over in Australia as a
player coach over there and Iwas starting to dawn on me that,
look, maybe it is time to kindof get a proper job and, and you
know, give up on this.
And you know you look back onthose moments where maybe that's
another version of a podcastsomewhere in another universe,
where you know I tell a storyabout how I pushed through that.

(04:35):
But I didn't on this occasion.
And uh, anyway, I went andstarted my um sort of
professional career in incorporate sales in London and I
have to say it was the firsttime in my life where I really
felt like I was not aligned withsort of like a really strong
purpose.
I just I'd gone into somethingthat was what I should do rather
than what I really wanted to doand had a genuine desire for,

(04:57):
and I quickly took action onthat.
I knew it deep down, eventhough I felt like I could
potentially be quite good atmaybe this, this path that I was
on, I decided, look, this isnot the future that I want for
myself, and, um, at that point Ididn't really know what I did
want to do, though, so what Idid was I stepped back and took

(05:18):
on a pretty sort of audaciouschallenge in my own personal
life.
Myself and a good friend.
We decided we were going to tryand row across the Atlantic
Ocean.
There was no real kind ofpriors to that.
It wasn't that I was, you know,especially good at rowing or
done a load of this sort ofstuff.
It was just a big challengethat I thought was going to pull
me forwards, and, and that wasactually my route into, into

(05:40):
sport or partnerships, really,because going on that journey
exposed me to, yeah, therealities of starting a team
like that, starting to raisesponsorship and actually sort of
from a sort of charitablefundraising perspective
initially, and as I went throughthat journey, it was pretty
much a two-year project to getto the start line of that, and,
yeah, I picked up a load ofrelationships and skills that

(06:01):
actually, I realized might lendthemselves to a career in sport
on the on the business side.
So when I came out the otherside of that challenge, I was
fortunate to see there was anopportunity with Southampton
Football Club.
I managed to get myself inthere as managing sponsorships.
A lot of that was really tryingto find the new, the right new
partners for SouthamptonFootball Club there in the

(06:21):
Premier League back in 2017-18and those few years beyond that
and from there I've continued onthat path.
In sport I've you know, I thinkyou come out of.
If you look at where I was withSouthampton, it's very sort of
commercial world of the PremierLeague and football.
My next stop was actually atBritish Cycling, which is much
more sort of if you look at thecommercial and then the social

(06:44):
impact being sort of two ends ofthe spectrum.
British cycling was certainlypulling myself back towards that
.
That social impact side.
Being an organization, they'reresponsible for sort of
everything from the grassrootsright up to the elite, and I
really enjoyed my time there.
It was a challenging time forBritish cycling over recent
years and for the sport, butactually a hell of a lot of good
work going on there and I cansee that organization certainly

(07:06):
sort of moving in the rightdirection.
Now and just over a year ago Ijoined Supertron and, yeah, here
I head up all of our commercialfunction, which is really about
how do we grow as anorganization.
So it's a very exciting briefand I'm sure we're going to
discuss it further now.

Charlie Reading (07:22):
Brilliant, and I understand that you've got a
background in psychology.
So how has your background inpsychology helped you in each of
those different business paths?

Chris Williams (07:33):
Yeah, well, I didn't necessarily have an
especially strong background inpsychology until recently.
It was more just an interestand I think, um, you know, what
I had realized is, in every areaof my life, psychology and the
themes that I was sort oflearning and and curious about
around psychology just keptshowing up, whether I'm talking

(07:55):
about, maybe, my personalrelationships, my job in sales
at the time and actuallyunderstanding the role of
influence and how do youactually connect with people,
leadership was which I believeis so deeply connected to an
understanding of psychology andthe different motivations of
people and so on.
So, yeah, it was more that itjust kept showing up everywhere

(08:15):
in my life and I've been showingan interest, I've been curious
and then, I suppose back whenCOVID struck, I decided to take
the leap back into education.
I went back and did a master'sin psychology and decided that
I'd I felt like I was sort oftrying to attach leaves to a
tree that I hadn't put rootsdown for when I was doing all my
learning in this space ofpsychology.
So I decided to go and, youknow, go deep and actually get a

(08:38):
bit more of an understanding ofthe science of psychology.
And, yeah, it's now sort ofsomething that I'm very pleased
that I've done and how that youask the question how's this, you
know, come through in what youdo?
I think it's a very the benefitsare largely individual, right.
I think there's a lot of whatyou realize when you come
through sort of studyingpsychology, that maybe a lot of

(08:59):
the most practical benefits ofpsychology could be defined as
common sense, right, that's notto say it's common practice, but
I think when you realize thesorts of things that I find to
be valuable from it is, you know, it's things like influence and
how do you influence people?
Often, coming back to reallyunderstanding people's
motivations and and thinking alittle bit more differently and

(09:20):
deeply about the way you connectwith other people.
That's something that I'vedefinitely, I say, tried to
approach with both externalrelationships with with other
businesses and as well as withinour teams.
And then, I think, one of theother things that you've seen
given you've asked it, what do Ithink is the most prevalent
ways that it shows up?
But I do believe that you knowhaving the ability to sort of
distance yourselves and thiswill probably be a theme in the

(09:41):
conversation distance yourselfslightly, slightly from the
emotion and actually try andcreate space between emotion and
decision, or emotion andcommunication, is definitely one
of the things that I think ismost impactful from all of that
journey.
So, yeah, that's something thatI'd have to say.
You still get caught out allthe time.
Just because I'm a qualifiedpsychologist doesn't mean I

(10:04):
practice everything perfectly,but I do think it gives me a
posture towards the world whichI hope is productive and helps
in a number of different ways.

Claire Fudge (10:13):
It's brilliant to hear your journey of kind of
wanting to go back and learnagain.
You know kind of that inquiringmind and I think you know you
touched on it there.
There's so many aspects tohaving some education in
psychology that actually you maynot apply everything to
yourself every day but actuallyit does help from a business
perspective that you actuallyjust mentioned just now in terms

(10:34):
of this big challenge of rowingacross the Atlantic with your,
with your friends, because frommy understanding there were some
huge challenges there thatpsychologically certainly would
be very demanding.
You also mentioned there about,like it, pulling you forward,

(10:57):
so I just wondered if you couldtell us, you know, about what
happened on that row, maybe someof those psychological tactics
that you used and what you meanby sort of pulling you forward.
What is it that you werelooking for or needed for
wanting?

Chris Williams (11:11):
I have to say that I have apologized in
advance.
I'm not sure there's a shortversion of this story.
I've been searching for it forsore bloke seven, eight years
now.
Um, yeah, so I'll try the shortversion.
So, yes, max and I uh, a guycalled Max Thorpe, an incredible
individual himself, and I tookon the challenge to try and row
across the Atlantic Ocean.
This is a 3,000 mile voyage ina seven meter long boat from the

(11:35):
Canary Islands, so just off thesouth coast of Spain, over to
the Caribbean, being, um,typically, it's going to take
you 40 to 90 days.
It's completely self-sufficient, so you have to take all your
own food and everything thatyou're going to consume within,
uh, that that duration has to beon board that vessel.
Or, you know, you're treatingseawater to make sure you can
drink that, etc.
Etc.
And um, and bear in mind, youknow, all of our training had

(11:58):
pretty much been done just offthe south coast of the uk, here
in and, and certainly had noprior background in extreme
ocean sports, so it was a bit ofa baptism of fire.
We got out there into the oceanback in December 2017.
And, yes, quickly, we're throwninto some of the most extreme

(12:19):
conditions you can imagine.
Over the course of the firstweek we had these progressing
and building storm conditionsthat each day we were thinking,
gosh, surely this has got to getbetter soon.
And actually each day it wasprogressively getting more
extreme, more intense, moreintense.
We now since learned that theseare the most intense conditions
that this race had seen in overa decade.
And on the ninth day we came toa bit of a crunch.

(12:40):
We were we're actually goingamazingly well, we're about a
thousand miles in to thisjourney and we were about a
hundred miles.
A crunch.
We were we're actually goingamazingly well, we're about a
thousand miles in to thisjourney and we were about 100
miles ahead of the, the nextnearest pair in in the race.
There's these 27 teams backthen competing to try and row
across the ocean, and we werecomfortably ahead of the world
record pace.
So we were doing amazingly well.
It was all going sort ofperfectly to plan, and then we

(13:03):
were caught by this what we calla rogue wave, which is a wave
that kind of sits completelyoutside of the, the normal
conditions, and it came from umside on beam on to our boat,
picked us up, um, threw us up inthe air and slammed us back uh,
essentially exercising a fullcap size, right.
So what happens then is we'reboth overboard.

(13:25):
We uh managed to come up abovethe water.
We're still tethered to ourboat.
Our boat righted itself and wepulled ourselves back on board,
thinking, look, everything'sgoing to be okay.
We kind of tidy up things andwe'll basically need to get into
the, the cabin here, call inand let them know look, we're
all good, because once you getsubmerged, your boat sends a
signal back to land to say, look, this boat's in trouble.

(13:46):
And we were going to call inand say we're not in trouble,
all okay, successfullynegotiated a capsize, we're good
to go.
When we opened the cabin hatch,we were hit with this smoke.
Our boat was on fire, and sowhat would happen?
In the force of this capsize?
The two batteries that we'reusing to power our navigation
equipment, our desalinator, thesorts of things that you need in

(14:09):
order to to be able to do thissort of thing they'd cracked and
they were now burning throughthe contents of our cabin.
So we now, in between waves ofrummaging around, trying to find
a satellite phone in order tocall in and explain what
happened.
So I'll try and fast forward abit here.
Essentially, we had onesatellite phone with one bar of
signal and we weren't able toget back into our cabin from

(14:30):
there on.
We called in and we wereinformed that you know this,
this is an immediate rescuerequirement.
You guys don't have any option.
We're going to have to sendsomeone to rescue you.
Hold tight, we'll be with youas soon as you can.
And then what happened was abouteight hours of fighting the
waves on deck.
For the next eight hours andwhen I talk about fighting waves

(14:52):
we're talking about 40 footwalls of water were coming at us
multiple times a minute.
It was some of the most extremeconditions that you could
possibly imagine.
And then, as it got dark, wedecided we're going to get
ourselves in our storage cabin,which is a space about the size
of a suitcase, and two of us gotin there and started to take
shelter in there, because wecould no longer see where the
waves were coming from and wefelt like we were incredibly

(15:12):
vulnerable.
Out on deck.
We were checking the horizonevery 30 minutes or so and we
were sort of putting around alaser flare to just help that if
anybody's coming, they'll beable to hopefully see this and
come and essentially help us andrescue us, and it took until
about 3 am in the morning.
So we've been going for about17, 18 hours since we'd made
that call and we see theselights coming towards us and

(15:33):
what was coming towards us.
We sort of already breathedthis sigh of relief, but we
shouldn't have done.
We had an incredibly hecticrescue operation with a 250
meter long, 110 000 ton oiltanker, um, which was was very
much unprepared for thesituation that we were.
We were in so um, a very hairyrescue experience later, which,

(15:55):
which involved teeth beingwrenched from my mouth and, um,
my teammate max, falling backdown into the ocean below and
and being saved by a trailingrope out the back of the tanker,
and we were finally pulled backon board this oil tanker, which
then spent the next three weekstaking us to Brazil before we

(16:17):
finally were able to head homeand see our families again.
So, yeah, it was an incrediblyextreme experience and I felt
like it's probably worth meshining light on that because it
might give you an inkling as tokind of like what took me back
into this world of psychologywhen I reflect on a lot of the
moments in that story andthere's so many that kind of
required resilience.
What I found profound wasactually how natural it felt to

(16:38):
do the right thing in thoseconditions.
It's not that I was especiallysort of superhuman.
Yes, we were well prepared andI felt like we were a good team,
and I do believe those thingsare incredibly important.
But when it comes down to how doyou handle stress and how do
you deal with that extreme levelof pressure and uncertainty and
fear when there's no onewatching and when there's no

(16:59):
other option, it felt almostnatural to do that, and actually
it did feel natural to do that.
And what I find to be mostinteresting about that is that
obviously we're exposed tothings far less stressful and
far less concerning on theday-to-day basis and it's really
hard sometimes to enter intothat state of clarity and to be
able to execute everything inthe way that you want to right.

(17:22):
And so that was what reallyfascinated me from a
psychological point of view isokay, how do you find it almost
easy and natural in the mostextreme, almost worst nightmare
conditions and then you canreturn to a normal environment
and sometimes not be able to tapinto that same level of clarity
of thought or focus and yeah, Ithink that's a really

(17:43):
interesting um insight from myexperience is that it's not that
all of a sudden these thingsare that much harder and they
require that much moreresilience.
It's actually just.
I think it reminds you that weare resilient.
We are actually reallyresilient almost automatically,
as it's wired into us.
We want to survive, we want todo well, we want to achieve
things.
It's often that we've unlearnedit and, through lack of

(18:05):
exposure, other voices or otheremotions have become more
prominent or more of ourautomatic state.
So I can't remember if that'sanswered the starting question,
but hopefully it's given yousomething to jump off.

Charlie Reading (18:17):
It's brilliant, and I suppose I mean you've
answered a lot of my followerquestions, because I think
there's a lot of learning fromthat experience.
I mean it must have beenfrightening as well.
But the last follow-up questionthat stood out to me was when
you are stressed at work or athome, what process do you find
with the benefit of thatlearning?
What process do you findyourself going through to try

(18:39):
and kind of, as you say, dealwith something that's actually
far less serious than youexperienced on that boat?

Chris Williams (18:46):
well, I think.
I think this is where it comesback to me saying common sense,
not common practice, right?
I think we know the lessonsfrom my story.
When max and I are sometimesinvited to talk to people about
our story, we're very consciousnot to shoehorn lessons into the
experience we had.
Both max and I actually tookhuge different lessons ourselves
from it.

(19:06):
But actually I tend to findthat when I ask people, what do
you take from that, theyactually have conclusions which
are reinforcing things that weknow to be true.
And the thing, to be honest,that I've learned and this isn't
my wording, actually, it'ssomething that just resonates
with my experience is having anability to anchor yourself and
to pull yourself out, like Isaid earlier, from the immediate

(19:29):
emotion or the immediatechallenge and some good.
I like to use sort offrameworks to do that, and I
can't remember exactly where itcame from, but it was from Simon
Mundy's podcast and I'veactually become good friends
with Simon.
He was interviewing somebody itwas the England hockey coach
and I forget the name and hespoke about where am I, where do
I need to be, and that'ssomething that I have written on

(19:50):
the wall in front of me, right,and it's about how do I create
the ability to pull myself outof maybe where I am emotionally
and re-identify, reappraisewhere do need to be right now,
especially in a world like whereI'm often sitting in this one
room going back to back betweenmeetings.
How do I take myself out of theprevious conversation and
prepare myself for the next one?
It's the same as how do I inthe middle of the Atlantic, when

(20:13):
I've just been told that youare no longer going to be able
to pursue the objective that youhave.
Right, you're no longer goingto get to Antigua.
That dream of you with theflares above your head at the
finish line, that's not going tohappen, right?
That's something that triggeredlike complete despair.
Right, I was ready to kind ofbreak down with overwhelming

(20:33):
sadness, but I do remember atthe time and I didn't have that
anchor in my mind at the time,but I do remember just thinking
this is not serving me right now.
I looked over at Max, the guywho I was with out there.
I looked to my right andthere's these unbelievably big
waves and I just knew that Ican't afford to be upset right
now.
And it was amazing how,actually, when I go back there.
This isn't make-believe, that'sjust true.

(20:55):
There was absolutely no value inthat emotion and I was able to,
just like that, remove it.
And I'm sure that there's manytimes that we've all felt
extreme emotions and we have notfelt the ability to remove it,
but when my life depended on it,I was able to, and, of course,
then you have to come back tothat at some point.
I have to feel that emotion atsome point.
But actually being able to pullyourself back to where do I
need to be, I find that to be areally useful practical trigger

(21:18):
there, charlie, really usefulpractical trigger there, charlie
, about getting you there.
The same can be used, and Ithink this is where I found this
lesson to be really impactful.
When I first heard someone elsetalking about it, he was
actually talking about cominghome from work and the kids
don't want stressed dad.
When he walked through the door, they need playful dad.
And just before the door, heneeded to catch himself and make
sure that I don't take thisversion of myself in there.

(21:41):
This has to stay here becausethe people behind that door,
they need something differentfrom me and in order to catch,
yourself to do that.

Claire Fudge (21:51):
Having a trigger or an anchor is a really useful
way of doing it.
That's really interesting howyou bring that into everyday
life as well.
So your example there of comingback from work and having a
million things I was alsowondering actually, as you were
describing that I know you said,and it's really interesting
because people take differentthings from a story and that you
don't necessarily want to tellpeople what they should be
learning from your experiencebut I also wonder like being

(22:13):
able to make those decisions inthat at that time, at that
moment, you know, when youreflect back into kind of
everyday life, there's so muchnoise around making decisions,
so many things that whereas Iguess in that moment, as you
said, you know it's actuallyabout survival and nothing else
matters other than that.
So that's what I took from that.
So you mentioned right at thevery beginning about your

(22:37):
recently coming to Supertri andI must admit this is something I
didn't know very much about butsince watching lots and looking
online, this is so exciting inthe world of triathlon, like
seriously exciting and reallyfast paced and energetic and
engaging.
So for those people who don'tknow about Supertri, could you

(22:57):
tell us a little bit about whatit is, the format of it.
I think that's really excitingas well.
And who's it for?

Chris Williams (23:04):
You've given it a very good tee up there.
To be honest, I think what isSuper Try?
We are an organization thatspecializes in short course
triathlon and we build it in away which, hopefully, is going
to inspire and entertain likethe sport has probably never
done before.
And I think the business camefrom three incredibly passionate
triathletes who, I think,looked at the sport and thought

(23:25):
we love this.
But why is it still serving andthis is back in 2016-17.
Why is it still serving onlyits sort of niche?
And the challenge that it gaveitself is how do we make this
more entertaining?
How do we make it somethingthat more people can be inspired
by, more people can engage with, more entertaining, how do we
make it something that morepeople can be inspired by, more
people can engage with?
And you start to look at theproduct and you think well, from
a participant point of view, Ithink there's a lot going for it

(23:48):
.
You've got some brilliantevents out there, but actually
they are really difficult to puton.
There's challenges aroundputting on triathlon events at
scale.
I'm sure you and all yourlisteners will know those but
when you think about it from aviewer perspective as well, and
from a fan's perspective.
You know, watching a multi-hourrace, both in person when these

(24:09):
are transient races and events,that kind of start here and
finish there and maybe you'reonly going to see a couple of
moments out of a seven, eighthour race but also the the
thought of sitting down andconsuming something for that
duration of time it's nevergoing to be something that's
going to connect with enoughpeople's motivations to really
grow, not in the modern world, Ithink.

(24:30):
You know.
You look at things like Tour deFrance, which have obviously
got that history and legacy toit.
I think if you created it nowlike I said earlier in the
conversation, I'm a massivecricket fan If you were to build
something for the future ofcricket now, it wouldn't be test
cricket, you know, as much as Iwish it was.
It would be something more liket20, which is that high impact
um made for consumer versionthat can really connect with uh

(24:55):
people in multiple differentways, and so that's what we've
tried to do.
And and how do we do that?
We, we create races uh thathappen in short, city center
locations.
So, um, these are never morethan one mile long in terms of
the circuit and what we do is wedo swim, bike run, swim, bike
run, swim, bike run three timesthrough back to back, super
short.
So there's lots of action.

(25:15):
Um, within the format we wecreate rules of of the, the
point system and so on thatinspire people to push harder at
different points within therace, to create jeopardy and
drama at multiple differentmoments within the race.
Trying to be almost gone arethe days of a race being a
foregone conclusion halfwaythrough or as soon as somebody
gets off the bike.

(25:36):
If one of the front runners isthere at the front, then you
almost knew that they're goingto head off and win that race.
Through mixing up the format, itreally challenges the athletes
to know a different form ofpacing themselves.
We know different athletesperform differently in terms of
when they've gone straight offthe run back into the water to
swim again.
There's just a load morevariables that come into play

(25:57):
through that format.
The other thing is it's mucheasier for us to broadcast.
By basing it in these singlelocations, we're able to build a
really high quality broadcaston that professional product and
that allows us to put it out toto much more uh audience right,
so much greater audiences canconsume it through both digital
content and we've investedmassively in that aspect of what

(26:17):
we do, as well as throughfree-to-air broadcast coverage,
because these events they're onehour of male racing, one hour
of female racing we only need atwo and a half hour broadcast
slot.
It's much more achievable towork with broadcasters to to put
that on their channels and getthat out there.
So, yeah, all of these thingsalign around.
Okay, how have we simplifiedthis down into a product that

(26:37):
can engage in a single locationfor a shorter period of time and
make it more accessible forfans to to watch?

Charlie Reading (26:44):
it sounds like a brilliant innovation in the
sport, because I think anythingthat that draws attention in in
terms of attracts eyes intoday's society.
That's what sports need.
You mentioning the tour defrance as the analogy I think it
was it got me thinking, becausemy understanding is that the
Tour de France viewing of.

(27:04):
So I mean, I'm a super keencyclist.
I have never, ever, sat andwatched it for a day on
Eurosport.
I do sometimes watch, andincreasingly watch, the
highlights, which obviously atthe moment are on ITV, but I
absolutely love Unchained onNetflix, and Unchained on
Netflix has got me watching thehighlights more and they even

(27:27):
made me think I could almosteven sit and watch it for a
whole day.
Now, and I wonder whether isthere any plan for this, because
my understanding is that theviewing figures for the Tour de
France this year doubled andthat's almost certainly on the
back of people get understandingthat the athletes and the teams
threw unchained.
Is there any scope to do thatto triathlon, because that's

(27:51):
what I think it needs.

Chris Williams (27:53):
Yeah, I think from being in my seat over the
last few years it's almost beensort of Netflix documentary was
the answer.
What was the question?
If you're honest, everybody wasout there very off the back of
drive to survive.
Well, actually it was beforethat even.
I think.
You know you saw things likethe last dance, the michael
jordan documentary, which youknow.
Just people who had no interestin basketball were getting

(28:14):
drawn in and, look, there's morehistory to it than that.
But I think this was a bit of agear shift in terms of sports,
going into that space of of,okay, actually we can reach
audiences who really don't careabout the sport, or maybe
they're peripheral fans, um, butwe can drive engagement through
the storytelling of the peopleright and getting under the
bonnet and and giving themaccess like they've never had it

(28:36):
before, and that, of course, isuseful and actually we've been
operating with that insight eversince SuperTri was founded as
Super League Triathlon.
If you look back at some of theearly content that we've
created, we were doing this offour own back.
Now, of course, it would helpto have a distribution partner
like Netflix come in and saylook, we want to give you that
platform and Ardor would verymuch be open to going down that

(28:59):
road, and I think there'll besome amazing stories, uh, to
tell, and so, yeah, of course,there'll be an interesting
direction to go, I think, in ifyou look at, okay, what are the
tools within our disposal rightnow?
It is about how do we workcloser with the athletes, and
we've come up with things thatwe believe add more layers to
the story, and and we're in thatsort of journey at the moment
of how do we bring these throughmore and how do we create

(29:21):
better stories and tell betterstories through those.
For example, I'm talking aboutour teams.
We're the first reallycompetitive team product in the
sport of triathlon and we'vedeveloped it with men and women
on the same team competingindividually, but they're
competing as a team towards thesame leaderboard, men and women,
which I believe is the onlyprofessional league where we

(29:46):
have that absolute equity inequal amount of men, equal
amount of women competing inthat way and, look, that's
something that we think isreally interesting and it's
actually how we think it shouldbe.
I think a lot of sports, ifthey were to start again now,
would probably develop theirstructures in that way where the
men and women would have theirown competitions, but also they
would compete in a combinedformat somewhere along the road.
But actually we have the.
I suppose that the good, thegood facts of you know I've said

(30:09):
there, we don't have the legacyand the history of a tour de
france.
Now, the upside of that is thatwe don't have any of that
historical baggage that you getas a, as a legacy organization
that you know, when we seesomething that we think would
improve what we do, we can do it.
Uh, and so that's quiteliberating and yeah, of course
it would make us very sort ofwell primed, I'd say, for a sort

(30:29):
of behind the scenesdocumentary series that can
hopefully reach more people yeah, and you mentioned that the
team structure, and myunderstanding is that you've
kind of you know you sold teamfranchises to you knowises, to
the Brownlee brothers and thelike.

Charlie Reading (30:44):
How does the commercial side of Supertry work
?

Chris Williams (30:47):
Good question.
I think our business model isnot all that atypical to others
in this space.
The key drivers of revenues forour business are we have
commercial partnerships, sosponsorship revenue.
We have hosts, who aretypically local authorities who
invest to bring an event likeours for the, for the, both the

(31:09):
tourism and the social impactthat you can bring through what
we do.
We have, as you've just saidhere, the teams, which is
definitely something that'sthat's quite unique and where we
probably differ to others, andand then you have participation,
right, they're the key revenuedrivers.
The other stuff is, to be honest, sort of ancillary.
You know, things likehospitality, things like

(31:30):
merchandise, that sort of stuffat the moment is ancillary.
It has the potential to grow ifwe get things right.
But, yeah, teams, how does thatsort of function?
Well, what we decided was wewanted to build this um
proposition in this way andinitially we to test it and
pilot it.
We, we retain those teamsinternally and we delivered
those as a sort of under thesuper try internal mechanism.

(31:51):
Right, but the vision was like,if we can get this right um, we
believe it's going to help usgrow both, yeah, commercially,
but also in terms of gettingother people invested in in this
um from a uh beyond sort of thedirect sort of revenue aspect
of it.
But actually, how do we getmore people and more leverage to
reach greater audiences andalso to deepen the story that

(32:13):
we're having?
Like you said here, the britishteam owned by the brownlee
brothers and and their teamthere that for us, is now
potentially a vehicle that canattract investment and attract
audience in a different way towhat we can do as a league.
So we want to create theenvironment for that team to be
successful and allow them theplatform to go and, yes, promote
young athletes and promote thecompetitive aspect of what they

(32:37):
do, but also to build their ownsort of commercial model as well
.
So they will own some of theassets, they'll own their team
assets and it gives them thatability to go and potentially
grow the overall pie as well.
So what we've done here iswe've started that in 2024 with
two of those teams continuing tobe owned by the league and two

(32:58):
of those teams being sort ofdecentralized, as I say, to
external owners, and we're nowgoing through the process of
finishing that, go to market andtrying to find the right owners
for those teams.
Now, as you can imagine, it'sjust as important that you know,
in a partnership like that, weget the right owners involved in
the teams and make sure thatthese are sort of setting
themselves up for because one ofthe things we do want to have

(33:19):
is continuity with those teamsand make sure that there's some
long-term thinking behind how weget that to happen.
And yeah, there's a lot ofnuance within that.
When you start thinking aboutthe calendar and that is one of
the challenges in triathlonright now is obviously we've got
athletes.
There's only so many athletes.
There's arguably two sets ofathletes, some of whom sort of

(33:40):
cross over a a little bit, butyou have your short course
athletes and your long courseathletes.
There's definitely a few whocan do both, but I think it's
very hard to do both well at thesame time.
We will see, but ultimatelythose those athletes have have
only got so many competitiondays in their bodies each year,
and so we're having to make surethat we get our sort right and

(34:01):
try and marry it in a way wherewe're actually helping the
overall sport and not fightingagainst one another.

Claire Fudge (34:08):
It's fascinating to hear about how you are
creating these teams.
Have you got professionalathletes that are coming to you
saying I want to be part of ateam, or are people creating
teams and then you're findingthe owners for that team?
How does it work?

Chris Williams (34:21):
Well, it's been a bit of both teams.
And then you're finding theowners for that team.
How does it work?
Well, it's been a bit of both.
It's such a novel aspect,really, in terms of its
opportunity, that we're having alot of those sorts of
conversations right now with padathletes interested.
We've also approachedindividuals to see if this is
something that they might wantto do is it's all of the above,
but I think one of the thingsthat for us, makes the most
sense is is how do you connectthese teams to a bigger story, a

(34:42):
bigger picture vision, andthat's where the Brownlees
obviously have that.
This is about a legacy for themand how do you continue to push
the sport forwards here inBritain, and that's something
that we think could be reallypowerful over time.
Similarly, there's lots ofconversations going on in the US
at the moment about with theroad to LA 2028, there's a lot
of aspiration to get men andwomen on the podium there from
the US at the moment about withthe road to LA 2028.
There's a lot of aspiration toget men and women on the podium
there from the US.

(35:03):
How do we potentially work withthat and and see that as a
vision?
And you know.
Then there's other territorieswhere we're not active in from
an events perspective, but weknow they're really interested
from an audience perspective andmaybe they've got great
athletes from those regions aswell.
Where it's, it's in ourinterest to to try and build a
better association with thataudience and try and build a bit

(35:27):
more close fandom and andconnection with the team for the
people who are coming out ofthose markets.
So, yeah, there's there's lotsof different factors to consider
here, and, of course, I thinkgetting either athletes or
ambassadors behind some of theseteams, people who already have
that connection with fans andwith the community is something
that's really we believe to be aparticularly impactful one.

(35:48):
Now, what I would argue, though, is that I think it's really
important there's a genuinepassion behind those people.
I do see that there's a lot ofthis going on at the moment,
where you're seeing the RyanReynolds effect in Wrexham with
the football.
I've just seen someone there'sloads going on about this at the
moment because, as we sit here,at Super Bowl yesterday and, uh
, the Wrexham team was basicallyon an ad for one of his

(36:10):
companies that was broadcasterin the Super Bowl, so they
reached over.
The post basically said theyreached over 110 million people
yesterday, probably more than,uh, the collective reach of any
of the Premier League teams inthe US this season and this is
Wrexham who previously were in Ican't even remember which tier
of the English footballdivisions and so on and that's
come through.
You know the, the individualwho owns your, owns the team and

(36:32):
and his platform, but at thesame time he is an absolute,
rare breed of creative but alsosuper passionate and he's
invested himself for in along-term way with that team.
I think just applying that sameapproach but just dropping a
name on top of the team won'tnecessarily work unless there's
genuine passion and long-termcommitment from that person.

(36:54):
You know we're seeing in someother sports where we're, you
know there's, there's definitelykind of the celebrity um
endorsement, celebrities arebeing used to sort of provide
that reach vehicle for, for teambrands.
I think it has to be, it'spowerful, but it has to be
connected through passion aswell.
There has to be a genuineconnection there and
authenticity to it yeah, it'sinteresting passion behind

(37:14):
supporting those people in ateam.

Claire Fudge (37:16):
Obviously, with with super try, it's a really
different compared to what we'reused to in terms of approach to
triathlon.
Over the years the face oftriathlon seems to be changing.
It's like where do you seetriathlon as a sport going?
Obviously, super try is goingin a an exciting direction, but
where do you see triathlon goingas a sport?

Chris Williams (37:36):
yeah.
Well, this is a reallyinteresting question.
I think it's.
The answer to that question isprobably going to change and
evolve quite a lot over the lastcouple of years.
If you look at what's going onright now, we've got obviously
ourselves.
We're trying to make the sportmore accessible.
That's ultimately what we'retrying to do right for fans, but
also for participants.
I'm not convinced that, giventhe signals that we're seeing

(37:58):
that there's going to be avolume growth, play at ultra
long distance, endurance eventsPeople are not becoming more
time rich, quite the opposite.
But I do believe that they arestill incredibly powerful
experiences.
And if I'm to tell you from mybackground myself, I would
certainly see a role for theshort course of the sport of

(38:19):
triathlon from a trainingperspective and from an
entertainment perspective, butfrom a sort of setting myself
that real vision of okay, whatcould I achieve?
I would certainly think it'sone of those you know going into
do an Ironman.
It's iconic.
I do believe it still has aniconicity to it that we're not
going to be able to necessarilymatch through what we do.

(38:39):
I think that that's what thesport needs to do well, is it
has to have space for both ofthese things.
I think it has to understandthe difference between that sort
of passionate and deeplyentrenched individual who's
going to come in and potentially, in time, become a regular
ironman athlete but also bringmore people in who see, do you
know what I want to be?
Um, more of an everydaytriathlete.

(39:01):
I look at sports like what highrocks have done recently.
Right, I am I'm not sure howexposed you guys are to it, but
from about 2014 so I'd say about2020 was very into crossfit I I
I'm an adopted member of theendurance community.
I didn't grow up sort of doingendurance sport I I grew up
doing team sports.
I started um getting intoendurance sport probably around

(39:22):
2013, dabbled with it until morelike the last five years where
I've really gotten um into it asa massive part of my lifestyle.
But crossfit was something thatI found to be incredible at um,
you know building communityaround fitness, strength and
fitness, training people to movebetter, etc.
Etc.
But it wasn't accessible.
And Rocks has come along andhas become a very accessible

(39:44):
format of that where, dependingon you know, it doesn't really
matter necessarily age.
So long as you're able to getthrough the movements, people
can get involved in that thing,and this year they're going to
have 630,000 peopleparticipating in High Rocks
events around the world.
Now, if you look at all of thebig players in the sport of
triathlon at the moment, I don'tthink we accumulatively from

(40:07):
just a pure um.
You know, if you look at themajor event organizers, who
groups those with a portfolio ofevents, don't think we reach
that number globally across thecalendar year.
Now it's a very fragmentedmarket in the sport of triathlon
at the moment and I think tomove forward, we are going to
need to see some moreconsolidation around the quality
of experience, and hopefullythat means organizations like

(40:29):
Supertri adding value at thelocal level, helping event
organizers to deliver betterevents, delivering really high
quality experiences for peopleas well, as in a world where we
know that there's going to be aspace for others in long formats
of our sport to do the same.
So, look, it's hard to say forsure where we're going, but I
think what I expect is thathopefully, more eyeballs onto

(40:52):
the sport can bring in moreengagement and more investment.
That will allow us to put onbetter events and to grow the
base and to bring more people inat the the ground level, um,
rather than make it our missionto sort of bring people in at
the pointy end and hope thatthat's something that's going to
grow the sport yeah, I thinkthat's brilliant.

Charlie Reading (41:09):
I think you're right.
There'll always be a place forthat person that wants to uh go
off and do a life-changingchallenge like and an iron man
is that is that.
You know, the fact that peopleget their their the Ironman
tattoo is an indication of howbig a challenge they see that.
But there needs to be adifferent route into the sport
than just people saying I'mgoing to do an Ironman having
never done triathlon before,which is, I suspect, a small

(41:31):
minority as well.
As the high rocks thing I wasimmediately thinking is a really
good analogy and a very similarthing in a different side to
sport and a very similar thingin a different side to sport.
And I can see that a differentformat of triathlon can provide
that fitness and experience thatsomething like high rocks can
do through Super Tri.
So I think that's reallyinteresting.

(41:52):
Explain what you mean by I knowyou haven't used that term, but
the by Super Tri mass partitionevents, and can you describe
what those are like?
And if somebody's thinkingabout doing their first
triathlon, why should they lookat what you guys are doing as an
entry into the sport?

Chris Williams (42:10):
yeah.
So this is an area which we'rereally excited about sort of
growing and moving more into is,as I said, when we changed from
super league triathlon to supertry, it was a evolution of our
business from becoming uh, frombeing a?
Um, a pure place professionaltriathlon organization to
becoming a triathlon ecosystemwhere we also deliver mass

(42:30):
participation, age group races,um.
So by super try, which will beannounced probably by the time
we uh share this podcast, but um, but we're not shy away from
talking about it.
This is going to be the, thebrand name that sort of speaks
of our collective of, of massparticipation events and um,
we've started out.
In the last couple of years,we've brought in some amazing

(42:50):
events.
So the chicago triathlon, whichis over 40 years of history,
it's the biggest event in northamerica and it's a truly
incredible event.
I was there last summer.
That that's one of our bysupertri events, and what we're
very conscious of and what wemean by the, the sort of by
supertri, um, aspect of this isthat the chicago triathlon is
the chicago triathlon.
We're not going to make it thesupertri chicago triathlon.

(43:13):
That's not what it needs to be.
We believe that this still hasits own identity and that we
want it to still be about thatcity and about that location,
right, but the stamp of BuySuper Try is hopefully going to,
in time, be that qualityassurance that people know that
this is an event that sits aspart of a group of events that
we know are going to be of thehighest quality and that the
experience is going to beunparalleled to what you're

(43:35):
going to get at othershort-course triathlon events.
And so, yeah, as I say, shortcourse is what we're going to
specialize in charlie.
We our area is we want to beputting on events from that sort
of super sprint distance.
So maybe it's someone's veryfirst touch point with the sport
of triathlon.
We actually see some of ourevents.
We see over 40 percent ofparticipants being first timers,
other events more like 25, butwe we have a considerable amount

(43:59):
of first-timers doing ourevents.
And so, yeah, distances fromSuper Sprint to Sprint to
Olympic is where we're going tospecialize.
So, again, that Olympicdistance is still a really
meaningful amount of work formany people.
And when we look at USA, forexample, which is the largest
participation market when itcomes to triathlon, over 70% of

(44:21):
the total triathlonparticipation in the US last
year was from Olympic distanceand down.
I think, if you look at how muchof the attention that we
probably as a sort of thehyper-engaged aspect of the
community, the people speakingon podcasts, the people who are
really passionate abouttriathlon, I'd say that 90% of

(44:42):
the conversation typically,other than maybe around the
Olympics, historically has beenaround that long course, but
actually it's not where majorityof people are participating.
So for us it's how do we createan experience at that, at that
entry level, that sees more ofthose people committing more to
the sport, more engaged in thesport, uh, investing more
interest in the professionalaspect of the sport?

(45:02):
And so, where we can, whatwe'll do is we'll put on those
by supertri participation raceswill be accompanied by one of
our super tri league events.
It won't always be the case,but our super tri league events
will certainly be aligned withthose by super tri events.
And, yeah, we want to createthese festivals of triathlon
where, um, people can come andwatch the best athletes in the
world in in a very sort of fanfriendly format, but they can

(45:24):
also participate in in somethingthat you know might only
require an hour or 45 minutes ofeffort and actually if you join
a relay team, it might be evenless than that.
You can jump in on the daybrilliant.

Charlie Reading (45:35):
They sound like great fun, but I think anything
that brings new people to thesport it has got to be a
fantastic thing.
So I I think that sounds.
That sounds awesome.
Now we always like to ask everyguest what books have helped
them on their journey.
So what books have helped you,or books do you find yourself
recommending to other peoplethat you think would help them?

Chris Williams (45:57):
It's a good question.
Do you know what You've teed meup for a story here, charlie?
We get our food delivered byTesco, right?
And this young lad came andknocked on the door last week
and it must've been about 8 pmin the evening and I open up the
door and he's there.
He's pretty chuffed.
He said this is my last one forthe night.

(46:18):
I've managed to get through itreally quick.
I'm meant to be on till 11, butI'm done.
I said that's awesome.
Okay, what will you do now then?
Are you just going to knock off?
And he must have been about 18,right, and I remember, just like
I was pumped because I was likethis has given me sort of faith

(46:39):
that you know the 18 year oldwho's dropped off, he's not just
going to go back and justscroll TikTok, he's actually
going to go read his book.
I was loving this.
And he looked in and in mydownstairs my bookshelf is there
downstairs and he literallypeeked his head through the door
and said can you recommend me abook?
And so you're asking me thisquestion.
I'm trying to think what did Irecommend him?

(46:59):
And actually I recommended himthe book which is my favorite
book, which is the Alchemist byPaulo Coelho, I believe, is how
you pronounce his name.
It's just the most amazing bookabout the journey of life and
an adventure and embracing andaccepting things, and I think
you know, if I was to say whatbook do I recommend people that
that, I think, is going to bepretty universally relevant.

(47:22):
It's something like that, maybenot that that sort of tactical
um in terms of its utility, butit's certainly something that I
think um is brilliant for mind.
When it comes to some morespecific, valuable insights, I
really love Matthew Syed's books.
I think Rebel Ideas or BlackBox Thinking are fantastic in

(47:44):
illuminating some of the edgethat you can get through
reflection and reasoning, andalso just his ideas around
cognitive diversity and thatside of things I think to be
really important for making gooddecisions and making sure that
you don't.
So, for example, in the sport oftriathlon, one of the things
that I try and retain is I dotry and retain the outsider's

(48:05):
perspective.
I haven't always been in thesport of triathlon, I haven't
always been in endurance sportand I think we can easily
convince ourselves of thingsbecause we're really passionate
about them and work with a lotof passionate people who, of
course, see things in a certainway and that is part of what we
need to observe, but actuallythere's so much more information
that we need to consider ifwe're going to make, you know,
sound decisions that speak towhat I've spoken about here,

(48:27):
about growing the sport andappealing to more people's
motivations and so on.
So those are a few um I I wantone more that I will mention
because I don't know if this is.
We don't often talk about sales, but it's a you know, we're, I
think when you, when you work insenior positions in any
business, you're in sales, right, because you know, particularly
when you're trying to grow, um,it's, you know, it's our

(48:50):
responsibility all the time asan organization to represent
ourselves well and make surethat people understand how we
can deliver value for them.
And I think, um, the bookgetting to yes, is this is a
book with with a lot of valuableinsights about principled
negotiation.
One of the things that Icertainly say I see too much in
sport and maybe too mucheverywhere, but but is is is

(49:11):
sort, but definitely people canget away with it at times in
sport is putting an unjustifiedvaluation on things.
In the world of sponsorship,for example, it's sometimes
quite hard to articulate theprecise value of something.
So actually understandingprincipled negotiation and
having some levers that you canpull in conversations and

(49:31):
understanding the impact aroundthat is is something that I
found really, really valuable.
So if I was speaking to someonewho's starting out in sales,
I'd tell them to give that booka read brilliant.

Charlie Reading (49:40):
I've not read gang to yes, so that's gonna go
on the on the reading list.
Matthew syed is one of myfavorite authors.
I love all of his stuff, but Ithink rebel ideas might actually
be my favorite because of thediversity think of thinking and
group think conversation.
I think it's so powerful inbusiness today.
Um, do I agree?
But my favorite recommendationabsolutely is the alchemist, I

(50:01):
think that is.
I read that when I wastraveling after university, when
I had.
I didn't want to go intofarming but didn't really know
what I wanted to do, and I readit and I then I recently read it
, about six months ago, and Iwas only reading it six months
ago that I realized how much ofan impact it had all of that
time ago, because it's justbrilliant in terms of you know,

(50:23):
finding your path and and Irealized actually it was that
book that convinced me not to gointo farming and to take the
random path into financialservices, which proved to be
reasonably successful.

Chris Williams (50:35):
So yeah, so you know, Charlie, I have to share
this one because it's on my deskand I am picking through at the
moment and it is genuinely fullof if you wanted to think about
things, that.
So this is Simon Mundy's bookand Simon Mundy's book is called
Champion Thinking Get Out ofyour Own Way.
Find your peak performance.
I I honestly think the way thathe, and the conversations he's
had with people on his podcastas well.

(50:56):
He is phenomenal at discussingthe things that we start this
conversation talking about.
How do you actually find thatkind of peak state and how do
you make sure that you canalmost block out noise and
understanding principles of likeflow and and that side of stuff
.

Charlie Reading (51:11):
I find the conversations he's had with
people are incredibly valuablebrilliant, and I actually didn't
know that he had a book out, sothat's a.
That's another one to add tothe reading list.
Fantastic, thank you.
We always like to get the lastguest to ask the next guest a
question without knowing whothat person is going to be.
So our last guest was theamazing kurt Madden, who just
finished his 50th Ironman inKona last year.

(51:34):
And, yeah, just amazing guy.
So, claire, I think you've gotKurt's question, haven't?

Claire Fudge (51:40):
you, yeah.
So if you could run to the endof the red carpet and cross the
finish line with a close friendor a loved one at Kona, the
World Championships, who wouldyou invite, and why?

Chris Williams (51:52):
Okay, at Kona, the world championships, who
would you invite and why?
Okay, the way the way that'squestion, the question, is
worded, makes me feel thatyou're supposed to sort of think
about some someone that yousort of someone aspirational to
you or like a hero and or so on.
But, like my, my, my instinctsare definitely coming back to
family here.
I was going to say my brother,but I'm actually starting to

(52:13):
think that that might mean thatI've regressed too far with my
fitness level, because I'm quitehappy to be quicker than him.
So I'm not going to say him I'dlike to be there at the Maybe I
finish and he's coming in a bitbehind me.
So that one.
But no, it'll be my son,because that means I'm still
going in quite a few years' time.

(52:34):
He's only 16 months old.
So, yeah, he's got a bit oftraining to do before he gets on
the red carpet, I think.
But yeah, to be able to sort ofget there with Leo, my son.
I think that would be my answerto that question about it.

Charlie Reading (52:48):
I think that's awesome.
I think that's awesome becauseI hadn't really taken that.
Of course, with an Ironman,you're not allowed to cross the
finish line with anyone, so Ihadn't really thought about the
fact that it needed to have beensomebody that had also raced.
So, yes, I think that's alovely.
So the fact that you're doingyour Ironman man and you're both

(53:08):
in Kona at the WorldChampionships, that would be
awesome, wouldn't it?
That would be seriously cool.
You're gonna have to keeptraining pretty hard to keep up
as your son just 16, 17 years oftraining yeah, you'll be

Chris Williams (53:21):
you'll be fine.
Yeah, by then I might actuallyhave some time back and I might
be able to do some training yeah, good luck with that brilliant
chris.

Charlie Reading (53:30):
It's been absolutely fascinating listen to
you.
I love the stories and also theunderstanding and and um, what
super try doing.
I think it's.
I think it's great for thesport.
I think what you, you know howyou've brought your learnings
from your previous experienceswith other sport and the
atlantic.
I think it's fascinating and Ithink it's.

(53:51):
I think you're absolutely rightthat the future of the sport
needs these different sort ofopportunities, and let's hope we
do end up with the NetflixUnchained, because I think it's
the revolution of the sportsdocumentary, isn't it?
And it's a wonderful thing.

Chris Williams (54:05):
Yeah, I think we'd see a lot of interesting
stories unfold, just having beenon the circuit.
Look these athletes.
It's funny, funny.
They spend so much time withone another.
They often train together andbut they're fiercely competitive
as well, and I think there's alot of um, sub stories and
subplots that that kind ofemerge and, yeah, I think it'd
be fascinating.
So, yeah, let's watch thisspace I definitely agree.

Charlie Reading (54:27):
I think it's the stories behind the sport
that would make it reallyfascinating, in the same way
that the Unchained has done.
Chris, where's the best placefor people to find?
Either follow you or find outmore about Supertri.

Chris Williams (54:40):
Yeah, sure, I think we tend to be pretty
active on LinkedIn, bothSupertri and myself.
I try and use that to connectwith people who, anyone who's
interested in learning moreabout what we're doing with
Supertri.
And, yeah, so you can find meme as Chris Williams on there
and we are as Supertri there aswell.

Charlie Reading (54:56):
Fantastic.
Thank you very much and, yeah,let's look forward to an amazing
year of.

Chris Williams (55:01):
Supertri ahead.
Thank you so much, Charlie.
Thank you, Claire.
It's been great to connect withyou guys.

Charlie Reading (55:05):
So what did you make of the interview with
Chris?

Claire Fudge (55:07):
A great story into his world where he is now in in
super try, um, and also I Ithink you know right at the very
beginning where he was talkingabout the rowing in particular,
one of the things that I reallythought about that is how
everybody learns somethingdifferent from a story, um, and

(55:28):
that you don't necessarily needto teach in a story that
actually people take somethingfrom it.
So, and that was a side point,but that really made me think
actually.
But yeah, I'm excited to learnmore about Supertri as well,
because it actually feels reallyexciting to be involved in that
.
What about you?
What did you sort of reallytake from today's conversation?

Charlie Reading (55:47):
Well, the first thing I was going to touch on,
which I took a slightlydifferent take on, is the
importance of stories.
So how sport now is being toldbetter through stories around
what happens on the pitch or onthe court, as opposed to
necessarily what happens whatyou see in the live sport, and I

(56:09):
think that it's reallyinteresting, isn't it the live
sport?
And I think that that's it'sreally interesting, isn't it?
And how, for a sport liketriathlon and or cycling, that
those stories become even moreimportant.
And I think he, the um, thelast dance, the chicago bulls,
one, is a perfect example inthat, like he said, there's lots
of people that absolutelyfascinated, were absolutely

(56:29):
fascinated by it, myselfincluded, but that weren't that
fascinated by basketball.
And just understanding thestories of what goes on behind
the scenes is so powerful, and Ithink you know that's a lesson
that we can all take in business, isn't it?
You know, if we could reallyget to the heart of the stories,
um, you know they say thatfacts tell and stories sell.
Well, you know, if you can getthe stories of your business out

(56:49):
there, it's so much um, so muchmore powerful, and I think
they're doing that really wellwith um, uh, I think that that
was the kind of point, and Ithink the super tri concept is
also a great concept in that Ican see they're making it very
much, trying to make triathlonmainstream, which it needs to be
.
It's still what we still wantthe long course stuff and the

(57:12):
and the crazy outlandishendurance stuff but I think
there's definitely a place forthat sort of mass participation
kind of high, high, um, reallyeasy, easily accessible piece.
What are your thoughts aroundthe sort of super tri format and
how they're going about it?

Claire Fudge (57:30):
do you know, originally when I, when I
thought of this, I suddenlythought, actually, the olympics,
how the olympics have broughtthe relay triathlon in.
That was firstly where my headwent and I just thought actually
, that made it very, veryexciting to watch.
And, having been in paris thisyear to watch it by super
exciting to to see that.
And also from a spectator pointof view, um, and I think this

(57:52):
is, I think you know this bringsin, then, a level for everybody
, doesn't it like?
Not everybody has thataspiration to do something
really long, but it also bringsmore interest, more money into
the business again.
Um, so I I think it, I think itis.
You know, triathlon, I think, ischanging and I think we will

(58:12):
see more of this kind ofexcitement that people want.
And also team, because you knowvery well, like training for
triathlon, you train with yourbuddies and your friends, but
essentially when you do atriathlon you are on your own,
it's your race, even thoughyou're around other people.
So that kind of team format Ithink is is really exciting.

(58:32):
I think one of the things Ialso thought as well was was
around um, you know that, theT100 and the pro triathlon
series and prize money and howthat face of triathlon is is
changing um.
So that was really interesting.
It just got me thinking a lotabout the future for
professionals and how they canmake a career out of triathlon

(58:58):
yeah, because ultimately, in intoday's day and age, you've got
to attract eyes, haven't you?

Charlie Reading (59:02):
and?
And if you're attracting eyesand and let's be honest, you
have to be fairly hardcore intoyour triathlon to find watching
an iron man on you know on alive stream particularly
interesting, and even if you arehardcore at your triathlon, to
find watching an iron man on youknow on a live stream
particularly interesting, andeven if you are hardcore at your
triathlon, it's still quiteoften quite dull.
And so a way of makingtriathlon more like, you know,

(59:22):
gladiators is a way of making itconsumable by the public, and
that is then going to drawattention to people.
Go, actually, I want to have ago at this, and then I want to.
Personally, I want to race theIronman, but I want to watch the
Supertrike and that's, I think,the difference, isn't it?
So I think it's interesting.
I think from a business model,it's really.

(59:45):
It's thought-provoking in thesense of how do people want to
consume versus engage in your um, in whatever it is that you do?
So I think that's, that'ssomething that I got um from it.

Claire Fudge (59:59):
I think another thing is this, which again comes
into business, and maybe howyou're, you know you're
marketing, how do you attractpeople?
You know you were talking aboutthe kind of stories and that
people really need and want to.
You know, hear, see, feel thatemotion within a story, um, but
also that that kind of idea thatwe don't have time.

(01:00:22):
You know, we all know thatactually, on social media now I
can't remember what the statsare, but people like take
however many seconds per postand that, hence why videos are
becoming, you know more of whatwe, what we essentially should
be doing, you know, this yearand that kind of quick nature of
, yes, it's not quick to trainfor that, but it's a race and
it's over and it's done with.
You know, is this where kind ofpeople are kind of going as

(01:00:46):
well, this kind of instantaneous?

Charlie Reading (01:00:49):
yeah, I don't, I don't say that I think that's
right and I also think that wedidn't.
He sort of chris touched on it,but it's, how often can an
athlete race?
Well, if you're doing a supertry, you can probably race every
weekend.
You're doing an ironman, youprobably do four or five a year.
You know that's, that's yourlot, isn't it so so again, that

(01:01:10):
leaves it open to much more kindof like a league structure like
in football, as opposed to kindof three games a year, which is
a totally different beast,isn't it?
And I loved his bookrecommendations.
I thought Alchemist.
Have you ever read theAlchemist?

Claire Fudge (01:01:27):
So I have started to read it and it's just
reminded me I need to actuallygo back and that's going to be
one of my Audible downloads, ifit's on Audible.

Charlie Reading (01:01:35):
It is on Audible.
It is a lovely, lovely book andit's just like you're always
listening to the story orreading the story, thinking it's
just too simple.
It feels like almost like a bitof a children's storybook, and
yet the lessons within it arejust brilliant, absolutely
brilliant.
So, um, so, yeah, if youhaven't, for the listeners that

(01:01:56):
haven't read it, yeah, I woulddefinitely, I would definitely
do that.
And and actually, if you run abusiness, I think matthew syed's
rebel ideas is a phenomenalbook in terms of thinking about,
thinking about your thinking,actually, you know, and group
think and how you know, becausepeople tend to want to recruit,
recruit people like them, andyet actually that's the worst

(01:02:16):
thing you can do from a diversethinking point of view.
So so, really good.
So so, loads of reallyinteresting takeaways.
Um, and amazingly, we haven'treally talked about his
incredible adventure on theAtlantic, but, um, he took the
lessons from that and appliedthem to everything else.
So I think that's reallyinteresting.
So, keep up with your training,claire, and for everyone else,

(01:02:39):
keep on training.